Bizarre

[boots]

Without outing, what's the strangest thing that you have personally seen an athlete (prep, collegiate, pro) do?

 

[Bubbler]

During the game?

 

[boots]

For ****s and giggles, either in a game or away from the field or arena or stadium. But remember, you had to have personally seen this. No second or third-handed entries allowed. AND NO OUTING!!!

 

[Write-brained]

I was at the Kevin Gross game in Philly ..

 

[shotglass]

We had an annual rivalry football game with our neighboring school. Two years after I graduated, the other team came out for its first offensive series. The center snapped the ball, hit one guy, and kept on running. Down the field, through the end zone and into the cornfield behind the end zone.

It was determined that he was chemically enhanced for the game.

 

[KG]

This happened after the event but said pro threw his arm around me in the middle of an interview and smiled really big for someone who was taking his picture. ???

 

[hockeybeat]

I once saw Eric Lindros skate a shift with his head up.

 

[slappy4428]

I once saw a soccer game where players didn't act like they'd been shot when their opponents breathed on them.

 

[Frank_Ridgeway]

I was doing a sidebar at a game Luis Tiant pitched. He was pissed he was being taken out, and instead of handing the ball to the manager, he dropped it to the mound. Then, as he walked toward the dugout, he took off his glove and threw it toward the stands, where it was caught by the netting that kept fans safe from popups. After the game, everyone wanted to talk to Tiant. He took a very long shower. Then he emerged with a large cigar in his mouth and a white towel wrapped around his waist. Reporters trailed him like a procession of silent ducklings following their mother. Tiant had not yet reached his locker when he turned to face us, removed the cigar from his mouth and said, "What, somebody ****in' die?"

 

[jimmymcd]

At the NCAA track & field meet in Indianapolis in 1986, when Kathy Ormsby of North Carolina State ran off the track during the 10,000, ran out the gate and jumped off the White River bridge. Totally bizarre, but she survived and is doing wonderful work now with other disabled people.

 

[JBHawkEye]

There was a girl in the area who was one of the top cross country runners in the state. She was being coached by her brother, who was an absolute ass to her and anyone he dealt with. He ran her in every event he could during the season, and every road race he could in the area during the spring and summer.

In her senior year, after she had pretty much gone undefeated during her career (I think she lost one or two races), she started falling out of meets with mysterious "injuries". At one meet I covered, I watched her purposely run just a few feet off the course and trip over a cone marking the course, then she fell, grabbing her ankle as if she was hurt. It was so obvious she did it on purpose, and her brother started screaming at her. One of the veteran coaches at the meet told me it was "the most pathetic thing I've ever seen."

She ran one more meet a couple of weeks later, finished in the middle of the pack, and never ran again.

 

[HejiraHenry]

At the NCAA track & field meet in Indianapolis in 1986, when Kathy Ormsby of North Carolina State ran off the track during the 10,000, ran out the gate and jumped off the White River bridge. Totally bizarre, but she survived and is doing wonderful work now with other disabled people.

****. I had never heard of that one.

 

[Calvin Hobbes]

High school kid calls a pizza shop from a phone in the locker room and has a pie delivered to the bench during a game.

 

[DougDascenzo]

At the NCAA track & field meet in Indianapolis in 1986, when Kathy Ormsby of North Carolina State ran off the track during the 10,000, ran out the gate and jumped off the White River bridge. Totally bizarre, but she survived and is doing wonderful work now with other disabled people.

****. I had never heard of that one.

RUNNER QUITS RACE, LEAPS FROM BRIDGE

By FRANK LITSKY, SPECIAL TO THE NEW YORK TIMES
Published: June 6, 1986

Kathy Ormsby of North Carolina State, who broke the collegiate record for the women's 10,000-meter run seven weeks ago, was hospitalized with a serious spinal injury today after she bolted from another 10,000-meter race Wednesday night and apparently attempted to commit suicide by jumping off a bridge.

Miss Ormsby is a 5-foot-5-inch, 108-pound, 21-year-old junior, a premedical and dean's list student from Rockingham, N.C.

Wednesday night, she ran at the Indiana University Track in the 10,000 meters, the first final of the National Collegiate Athletic Association's outdoor track and field championships.

For the first 6,500 meters, she and three others ran in the leading pack, well ahead of the 20 others. Then, according to a statement by meet officials, she ran off the track, climbed a low fence and ran across a softball field.

She then ran to a nearby bridge on New York Street over the White River and jumped off the bridge, according to a police report, landing in weeds 20 feet from the water. The bridge is about 30 to 40 feet high. The incident occurred at 10 P.M., and no information was released for at least 12 hours. Called 'Attempted Suicide'

The report called it an ''attempted suicide.'' According to Capt. Larry D. Propst of the university police, ''A doctor who treated her said she told him, 'I jumped.' '' Captain Propst would not identify the physician.

''She did jump off the bridge,'' said Lieut. Doug Cox of the Indianapolis Division of the Indiana University Police Department. ''The speculation is that she is a perfectionist, and she didn't think she had done very well. She felt despondent because of the way she was running. There is no physical evidence to indicate that anything else happened.''

None of the North Carolina State coaches or runners apparently saw Miss Ormsby run off the track. After 10 minutes, Coach Rollie Geiger became concerned and started looking for her.

''He thought she was crying,'' said an official of the Indiana University Track Stadium who asked that his name not be used. ''He was worried. He then decided to go to the river, and there she was. She had jumped onto a floodplain. He called for help.''

An ambulance took Miss Ormsby to the Wishard Memorial Hospital, 10 blocks from the track. Today, Karen Wilczewski, the hospital's assistant public-relations director, said Miss Ormsby was in serious condition in the surgery intensive-care unit. Damage to Spinal Cord

''They are checking for a possible fracture of the spine,'' said Miss Wilczewski. ''She has suffered a spinal injury with spinal-cord damage and chest injuries. We are unsure at the present time if the damage is permanent. Kathy is awake and alert.''

Miss Wilczewski said she could not comment on any signs of paralysis ''until we know more.'' Geiger spent most of the day at the hospital and was not available for comment.

Dale and Sallie Ormsby, Miss Ormsby's parents, were here to see her run. Carol Roberson, the hospital's community relations coordinator, said the parents had no idea what had happened or why it had happened.

A source close to the team, who also did not want to be identified, said Miss Ormsby had seemed overwhelmed by her recent success. On April 24, in the Penn Relays in Philadelphia, she unexpectedly won the women's 10,000 meters in 32 minutes 36.2 seconds, the fastest ever run by a collegian.

''She is a shy girl, an introvert,'' he said. ''She seemed to put pressure on herself that she had to run fast every race. She apparently felt she had to win the N.C.A.A. race. She was hanging in with the leaders, but I guess she felt she couldn't win, and she couldn't handle it.''

Stephanie Herbst, a Wisconsin sophomore, won the race in 32:32.75, breaking Miss Ormsby's collegiate record. Miss Ormsby had also been scheduled to run in the 5,000-meter trials tonight.

 

[zeke12]

Minnesota hockey player who was mentally unbalanced.

At the end of a Final Five game -- in front of a mostly full Xcel Center -- he went back on the ice after most everyone had departed. Placed a puck at center ice, went in penalty-shot style, fired a slap shot top shelf and then continued full speed into the net, knocking it and himself into the end boards.

Got up, skated back to center ice and laid his stick down there before heading to the locker room.

 

[Bubbler]

I saw a guy go out and shoot trophies on the football field. Crazily enough, the same guy on the same football team quit on their megalomaniacal coach at halftime and won the big game. Quarterback went to Brown, I'm told.

Oh ****. That's when I saw Varsity Blues in my hotel room.

 

[Write-brained]

Little League 1984: I'm playing first base when the left-handed batter foul tips a ball to his left. Crushes a 10-year-old kid square in the forehead as he was standing right where the backstop ends. Pop. Sounds like a ball hitting a hollow pipe. The kid just stands there looking confused for like three seconds and just topples over into the arms of a coach. Had a lump on his forehead the size of the ball a few days later.

 

[Frank_Ridgeway]

Was covering a high school softball game in 1980, small, rural school, and it was obvious that most of the girls on one team were completely ****faced. Their pitcher couldn't have found the plate if she had radar and she was laughing her ass off. I asked their veteran coach about it after the game and she started crying, said don't put it in the paper but she couldn't deal with them anymore. Weird thing was she had coached most of those girls in basketball and had made it a couple rounds into the state tournament.

 

[Bubbler]

Was covering a high school softball game in 1980, small, rural school, and it was obvious that most of the girls on one team were completely ****faced. Their pitcher couldn't have found the plate if she had radar and she was laughing her ass off. I asked their veteran coach about it after the game and she started crying, said don't put it in the paper but she couldn't deal with them anymore. Weird thing was she had coached most of those girls in basketball and had made it a couple rounds into the state tournament.

Sounds like they were halfway to realizing the Carrie scenario.

 

[dooley_womack1]

At my first paper, a high school kid celebrated a football win by running head-first with his helmet on into a concrete wall. Kid died.